


There Beneath

by RisingShadows



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Scho is soft, Tom Blake Lives, Tom loves him for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23250784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingShadows/pseuds/RisingShadows
Summary: William Schofield is an enigma Tom thinks he understands.
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield, Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 5
Kudos: 98





	There Beneath

William Schofield was an enigma. When Tom had first joined the eighth, still a newly minted Private proud to wear the uniform, he’d found him intriguing. Something about the man’s demeanor had drawn Tom in. Silent and in the eyes of most of the soldiers, new and old, aloof. 

Now, if anyone asked he’d say it was because he’d thought the Lance Corporal could use a friend. Someone to loosen him up, to draw a laugh from the frown that seemed to sit perpetually on his face. It would only be a partial lie in the end. He had after all desperately wanted to be the older man’s friend from the get go after all. 

The truth of the matter was that he had seen a quiet kindness in the other soldier that he didn’t see in most men on the front. Something about the quiet grief that clung to the other, trailed in his shadows, had seemed a physical thing he could ward off. Something he could take and pull the other free from. 

William Schofield had been an enigma haunted by a sorrowful grief Tom had had no understanding of. A wraith at the edge of the company that many of the men seemed to simply forget about. 

Tom had never been able to push the other from his mind, to forget and ignore the quiet soldier. 

Beautiful blue eyes that looked on with a quiet sorrow at burnt out buildings and the wreckage that made up the war front. That alone had drawn Tom to him. And he couldn’t bring himself to even consider regretting it. 

Not when they had lain, away from the rest of the men, Scho with his back to a tree and Tom splayed out beside him. The other soldier had never been a man of many words, even once he’d opened up to Tom and given up on any chance of the other growing bored. Even once he’d started to gift Tom with the slightest glance past the barriers that surrounded him.

No, he had never transformed into a talkative man in the traditional sense. But over the months Tom had begun to recognize a different language to what Scho did. A much more subtle thing, something he couldn’t quite place at first until he realized that he didn’t need to ask what the other was thinking when it was written across his face. 

Will didn’t talk aloud, he didn’t need to, his eyes telling Tom everything he needed to know. Soft smiles, and the gentle crinkle around his eyes as he huffed a soft laugh. And some nights, some days Will would slip away. Eyes distant in a way that unnerved the younger soldier, even after he’d been promoted. 

On those days Tom would talk. Never about anything important, but he’d tell stories, and jokes. He’d fill the small pocket they’d carved out for themselves with his voice until Will came back. 

Will wouldn’t say thank you of course, not out loud. But he’d offer one of those rare smiles, the true ones that Tom was always trying so hard to pull from him and he’d lay a hand on Tom’s shoulder just long enough for Tom to feel the warmth of it. 

It was the quiet language that told him it was bad. Blood welling between his hands as Scho’s eyes shifted above him. Shuttering in a way far to reminiscent of those bad days Tom was always there to pull him out of. 

Tom had tried, tried to keep talking until he couldn’t any longer. 

“It won’t bother me.” 

The words weren’t nearly as important as Will’s eyes had been. That language of Will’s that was only his spelling out what Will was saying in a way that seemed so much more than that simple sentence. 

Tom hadn’t expected to wake up. 

And then he had. 

For months he’d waited, recovering oh so slowly as he waited. 

He’d been tempted to argue against his discharge, not that he wanted to return to the war, 

But Scho would still be there. And what would the other do on bad days? Tom didn’t want to think about it much less acknowledge that he wouldn’t be there to pull the other soldier out of it as he wanted to. 

And then he’d been sent home. Home to his mother, and the orchard and cherry blossoms he couldn’t look at without thinking of Scho. 

He didn’t know when he’d started connecting the two. Maybe when they’d been standing among the cut down remains of that small orchard, Scho looking down at them as they moved. 

Tom wished he’d said something then. Wished he’d told the other exactly what he thought, wished they’d simply been able to stay there. The two of them, and the cherry blossoms.

Not long after and Joe was home on leave, a silent shadow behind him. Both of them still in uniform. And Tom hadn’t cared for the Sergeant insignia on his upper arm. Too transfixed as he watched blue eyes shatter and piece themselves back together in front of him. 

His brother had slipped from the room, his mother still in the kitchen and Will had practically collapsed. Wrapped in Tom’s arms as he’d held him, ignoring the slight twinge of pain in his side as he did so. 

It wasn’t long before they pulled apart, Will’s hands hanging in the air on either side of his face as tears pooled in his eyes and he’d laughed a soft breathy sound that Tom had missed more than anything. 

Tom had talked for hours and it was as if nothing had changed. Tom’s mother bustling in and out of the room as they talked, Joe occasionally appearing in the doorway as if to ensure neither of the men had disappeared while he was away. 

Will hadn’t said a word, but Tom hadn’t needed him too. 

It had been hours before Tom’s mother had interrupted, calling them all to dinner just as another of Tom’s stories had begun to wind down and that vacant look had finally gone completely from Will’s eyes. 

William Schofield may have been an enigma but Tom found that even after months of being home, of drifting lost in a world he felt he couldn’t return too, here he was truly home. Will leaning against the trunk of the cherry tree as Tom smiled up at him. Head pillowed on his arms and Will just as quiet as he always was. 

The war wasn’t over just yet, and maybe Tom wouldn’t be able to return to it, but he trusted Will would return from it. Trusted the soft smile and the slight crinkle of Will’s eyes as he promised to write, to try and make it home. Home to Tom. 

It was odd Tom thought, while in the trenches home had seemed a concept he couldn’t begin to reach. Now there he was, and it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough without Will sitting beneath the Cherry trees and smiling. Telling Tom all he needed to know in that silent language of his. 

But it was enough. Enough to lay his head in the other’s lap and watch as Will turned soft blue eyes to watch the blossoms falling around them, lips pulling into a soft smile that Tom had missed dearly. 

It was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a fluffy them beneath the cherry trees and then I restarted and this happened instead... Honestly just a thousand words of Tom being completely in love with Will. I love these boys and writing from Toms perspective is fun.


End file.
